Western Regional MVP Aaron Afflalo hugs teammate Alfred Aboya at the end of their victory as Kansas' Mario Chalmers, at left, looks on. MICHAEL GOULDING, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SAN JOSE - Kansas wanted to run and gun and let the ball fly, as it had in putting up nearly 80 points a game. So, UCLA let them go.

The Bruins pushed them and kept pushing, and before long the Jayhawks were so sped up that they blew up. They couldn't make a layup, couldn't knock down a jump shot and couldn't score within spitting distance of the basket.

The Bruins beat the Jayhawks with their own game - strangled them with it, really - in a 68-55 victory at HP Pavilion on Saturday that sent UCLA to the Final Four in Atlanta, making it in consecutive years for the first time since the 1975 and '76 seasons.

Afterward, all the Jayhawks could do was shake their heads, trying to figure out what had happened. Kansas is a team that was supposed to thrive on up-tempo, to score in flurries and bury opponents. But the Jayhawks struggled to make a shot and were left with a season low for points in a game (their previous low of 57 coming in a Dec. 2 loss at DePaul).

"We just did some dumb stuff," Kansas guard Brandon Rush said. "We had 21 turnovers. We got sped up and started making some stupid plays."

The Bruins tied a season high with 15 steals and allowed the Jayhawks to hit only 41.1 percent (23 of 56) of their shots, their third-lowest mark of the season. Kansas had hit 59.5 percent in beating Southern Illinois on Thursday in the Sweet 16.

Rush, the Jayhawks' leading scorer, was able to hit 7 of 16 shots. But guard Mario Chalmers, second behind Rush, was only 1 of 8, including 0 of 2 from behind the three-point line.

In the first half, the Jayhawks missed eight layups. And in the second half, when they needed big baskets, it seemed that no one Coach Bill Self put on the floor wanted to take a shot.

Arron Afflalo took and made those shots for the Bruins, as did Darren Collison.

Afflalo, the Player of the Year in the Pac-10, never had great individual games in the NCAA Tournament. Coming in, he had hit just 33.9 percent (35 of 103) of his shots in 10 career games, including 30.6 percent (15 of 49) from behind the three-point line.

But with a trip back to the Final Four in the balance, the junior came up with some big shots and made some big plays, starting at the end of the first half.

Leading, 32-31, the Bruins had Afflalo matched up on Rush for the final seconds of the half. Afflalo kept the ball, staring down the Jayhawks. He moved on Rush, but instead of taking the ball to the basket passed it to Josh Shipp in the left corner.

Shipp nailed a three-pointer.

"With five guys staring at you, somebody else has got to be open," Afflalo said. "If you can get to the basket, then that's wonderful. But it's not like there was a whole lot of motion. It was just one guy dribbling, and they're staring at you, so I was just waiting for my opportunity to find a teammate."

In the second half Afflalo was a perfect 6 of 6, including 2 of 2 from behind the three- point line, finishing with a game-high 24 points. At one point, he scored nine consecutive points for UCLA.

But the Bruins' biggest shot might have come from Collison, after Kansas had cut UCLA's lead to 55-50. Just before the shot clock expired, falling down, the Bruins point guard fired a three-pointer over two Kansas defenders.

"I mean," Chalmers said, "the hoop was as big as the ocean for them."

Afflalo, of course, saw it differently.

"Huge, huge, huge," he said. "It was at a point in time where the momentum was going to shift one way or the other. And for him to have the courage to take that shot, that was huge."

But Afflalo said that none of those shots was as important as the collective effort on defense in getting the Bruins to the Final Four, where they will play the Midwest Regional champion, the winner of today's game between top-seeded Florida and No.3 Oregon.

The 55 points for Kansas were its fewest in an NCAA Tournament game since a 54-53 loss in triple overtime to North Carolina in the 1957 national championship game.

"Considering the talent level they have, considering how good they are, I think we did a pretty good job holding down some pretty good players today," Afflalo said. "Any individual offensive performance doesn't even come close."

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